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Memorial / Houston Texas

Memorial is one of Houston’s most prestigious neighborhoods. Situated between Buffalo Bayou and I-10, west of several incorporated villages, the community takes its name from the main thoroughfare, Memorial Drive. The first significant residential development in this area began in the 1950s. Above-average income home buyers were attracted to this heavily wooded area and to Spring Branch ISD and Katy ISD schools. Subdivisions range from comfortable mass-produced homes to million dollar estates. Development along I-10 on the northern portion of the area includes important office centers and massive retail districts at Town and Country and Memorial City.

The Memorial area of Houston, Texas, United States is west of Downtown Houston and northwest of Uptown Houston. It is bounded on the south by Buffalo Bayou, on the east by Interstate 610, on the west by Texas State Highway 6, and extends just north of the Katy Freeway to Westview and includes Spring Valley Village, Piney Point Village, Bunker Hill Village, Hedwig Village, Hilshire Village and Hunters Creek Village. These independent cities operate autonomously of Houston and have joint fire and police coverage. The northeast area near I-10 and Texas State Highway Beltway 8 of Memorial City is home to Memorial City Mall, the newer, more upscale Town & Country Village lifestyle center, and the mega-development project known as CityCentre, plus the emerging edge city around them.

In the 1960s, Houston was experiencing a period of suburban growth as the city expanded beyond the traditional area inside the Interstate 610 loop. After the construction of Interstate 10 through the city in 1968, the area where Memorial now resides became favorable to developers. At first, the Memorial area was sparsely populated and contained mostly empty land and farms, plus the few farm-to-market roads and thoroughfares. Development began in the late 1960s, as upper-middle-class subdivisions, mostly along the Buffalo Bayou, were built along with the accompanying government facilities (schools, police and fire services, etc.) This sudden arrival of widespread development also encouraged commercial growth along the main roads that criss-crossed the area, including the major road Memorial Drive.

For the next four decades, the area continued to prosper. High class development in the Memorial Villages between Beltway 8 (then known as West Belt, constructed in 1968) and Interstate 610 made the area a hotspot for public figures. Homes in the Villages now sell for upwards of one million dollars.

In the last two decades, the immediate area around the Interstate 10/Beltway 8 junction has suddenly become one of Houston’s main edge cities, along with the Texas Medical Center, the Galleria district and the Astrodomain. Memorial City Mall, often regarded as one of the city’s most prestigious shopping malls, and the Memorial Hermann Hospital center next to it, are the main landmarks of the Memorial City area. Recent skyscraper development along Interstate 10, including the notable Memorial Hermann tower next to the hospital – the city’s 29th-tallest building at 500 feet – has arrived with the completion of the Katy Freeway’s renovation.